Art attacks: From vomiting on Mondrian to elbowing a Picasso

The news today that a hapless art student toppled over and ripped a 6in hole in Pablo Picasso’s 1904 painting ‘The Actor’, which was hanging in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, will have produced gasps and titters in equal measure.

It is by no means that first time that a valuable work of art has been the victim of human clumsiness, as the smashing of Qing vases at Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum and the elbow-denting of another Picasso painting by casino mogul Steven Wynn will attest.

Mostly when art is attacked though, it is done so as means of protest or performance art, rather than mere vandalism, although the result is often the same. Whether someone pees in Marcel Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’ or vigorously kisses a pristine Cy Twombly canvas while wearing red lipstick, the restoration fees are the same.

With this in mind we’ve compiled ten eye-popping examples, both criminal and totally accidental, of “art attacks” that have rocked the art world recently.

Click here or on the image to launch our guide